1. These are the studies discussed in this essay: Alexander, Elizabeth Shanks, Transmitting Mishnah: The Shaping Influence of Oral Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Avraham Walfish, “Shitat Ha‘arikhah Hasifrutit Bamishnah al-pi Massekhet Ro'sh Hashanah” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001); Moshe Simon-Shoshan, “Halakhah lema‘aseh: Narrative and Legal Discourse in the Mishnah” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2005); Jaffee, Martin S, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE–400 CE (Oxford: Oxford University Pres, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berkowitz, Beth A., Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Halberstam, Chaya, Evidence and Uncertainty: Rabbinic Judges Interpret the World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcomingGoogle Scholar).

2. On these developments, see Neusner, Jacob, ed., The Modern Study of the Mishnah (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973)Google Scholar.

3. See Yassif, Eli, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning, trans. Teitelbaum, J. S. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Hasan-Rokem, Galit, Web of Life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature, trans. Stein, Batya (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

4. See mainly Fraenkel, Yonah, Sipur ha-agadah, aḥdut shel tokhen veẓurah (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 2001), 236–60Google Scholar.

5. One of the first books to utilize such concepts was Fraade, Steven, From Tradition to Commentary: Torah and Its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

6. Thus, in the course of her introduction alone, Alexander challenges both S. Lieberman's thesis of the oral publication of the Mishnah (19–21), and J. N. Epstein's theory of textual corruption (25–27).

7. Alexander, Transmitting Mishnah, 9.

8. While Jaffee's book suggests a wide thesis with sporadic examples, Alexander applies it to a systematic study of one tractate, thus exemplifying its exegetical power.

9. “Jaffee bypasses the question of priority that occupies so many scholars evaluating parallel traditions. Instead of trying to resolve the question of which version came first, Jaffee illustrates how oral performance can produce just the kind of variety exhibited by the parallels” (Alexander, Transmitting Mishnah, 36–37).

10. Some scholars claim that the Mishnah had some binding and authoritative status even before Rabbi Judah the Prince, which explains his avoidance of thorough adaptations of the Mishnah in accordance to his own views. See Frankel, Zacharias, Darkhei hamishnah, 2nd rev. ed. (Tel Aviv: Sinai, 1959), 285Google Scholar; and Epstein, Jacob Nahum, Mevo'ot lesifrut hatanna'im (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Dvir and Magnes Press, 1957), 212Google Scholar.

11. See Brody, Yerahmiel (Robert), “Sifrut hage'onim vehatext hatalmudi,” Meḥkerei Talmud 1 (1990): 237–303Google Scholar; and Uziel Fuks, “Mekomam shel hage'onim bemasoret hanusaḥ shel hatalmud habavli” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2003).

12. Moskovitz, Leib, Talmudic Reasoning: From Casuistics to Conceptualization (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002)Google Scholar.

13. Moskovitz, Talmudic Reasoning, 9.

14. In Moskovitz's words, “such rulings often seem to be conceptually casuistic [that is, not grounded in broader conceptual issues] and not just casuistically formulated” (ibid., 47). Moskovitz cites only two examples: M. Shabbat 24:2 and Mo‘ed Katan 1:1. I cannot see any reason to assume that the distinctions made in both these Mishnah units do not have a broader concept behind them, like the distinction between little and much effort, טרחה (as the two Talmudim indicate; see B. Shabbat 155a; Y. Mo‘ed Katan 1:1 [80a]), and are solely “realia based issues.” This conclusion strikes me as an a priori assumption regarding rabbinic (lack of) conceptualization rather then a textual-based inference.

15. See, for example, his formulation: “why casuistic legal formulation (and, apparently, casuistic thought) are so common in tannaitic literature” (Moskovitz, Talmudic Reasoning, 50 n. 14).

16. Moskovitz, Talmudic Reasoning, 59, 97.

17. Ibid., 49.

18. Ibid., 97. One should further note that although most of his examples are taken from the Mishnah, Moskovitz does not discuss it independently, but only as part of a tannaitic tendency toward casuistics in general.

19. These are the subtitles of Chapter 3. Alexander adopts this model from current scholarship on biblical casuistic style (see Talmudic Reasoning, 123–28, and, more extensively, Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, “Casuistic Elements in Mishnaic Law: Examples from M. Shevu‘ot,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 10, no. 3 [2003]: 190–200). This borrowing raises a number of questions not discussed by Alexander: Should we ascribe educational traits to all ancient casuistic laws, or is there something special about biblical and mishnaic casuistics alone? Are mishnaic casuistics simply an imitation of the biblical style, or is it a development or an adaptation of it? What are the relationships between mishnaic casuistics and contemporary (Roman and other) legal styles? Despite the attractiveness of Alexander's thesis, a more solid evaluation of the nature of mishnaic casuistics should deal with these questions.

20. Goldberg, Abraham, “The Mishnah: A Study Book of Halakha,” in The Literature of the Sages Part I, CRINT III, ed. Safrai, S. (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1987), 211–51Google Scholar. On these three options, see Strack, Herman L. and Stemberger, Gunter, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, trans. Bockmuehl, Marcus (Augsburg: Fortress Press, 1992), 151–54Google Scholar.

21. Simon-Shoshan, “Halakha lema‘aseh”, 43–50.

22. See the works cited by Moskovitz, Talmudic Reasoning, 8–15.

23. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, 128–32.

24. According to Jaffee, “the editorial work…seems more amenable to a scribal copyist/editor, untroubled by mnemonically managing an abundance of formulaic styles” (Torah in the Mouth, 109). This claim runs against the study of Avraham Walfish, “Shitat,” who found a wide usage of wordplays, chiasms, repetitions, and other mnemonic devices in the Mishnah's redaction.

25. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, 102.

26. Ibid., 131.

27. Mehkerei Talmud 3 (2006): 209–384.

28. Sussman, “Torah,” 328.

29. “If after all this great effort we have not been able to cite even one real piece of evidence for the existence of books in halakhah, it means that there were actually none” (ibid., 225).

30. See Epstein, Jacob Nahum, Mavo lenosaḥ hamishnah, 3rd ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2001), 692–706Google Scholar; Lieberman, Saul, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 2nd ed. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1994), 83–99Google Scholar; Albeck, Chanoch, Mavo lamishnah (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik and Dvir, 1959), 111–15Google Scholar; Rosenthal, Avraham, “Lemasoret girsat hamishnah,” in Sefer hazikaron lerabbi Sha'ul Lieberman, ed. Friedman, Shamma (Jerusalem and New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993), 29–47Google Scholar. There is a disagreement regarding the exact nature of these written copies of the Mishnah—whether they were formal editions (Albeck), private notes (Lieberman), or something in between (Epstein). All, however, agree, as Sussman, “Torah,” shows, that there was some kind of written version of the Mishnah available to the sages, whether formally or not.

31. Sussman, “Torah,” 279–82.

32. Sussman “Torah,” 240–44; cf. Lieberman, Hellenism, 88–90.

33. One can in fact identify two very different arguments for the coexistence thesis: the comparative argument based on the place of literacy in Hellenistic cultures, and specifically on the unprecedented phenomenon of the existence of a composition of the size of the Mishnah in exclusively oral manner (see n. 39 herein), and the philological argument based on the unlikelihood of oral tradition having such a firm textual fixedness from so early on (unlike other rabbinic composition, most notably the Bavli, see n. 11 herein). Sussman, “Torah,” naturally takes issue mainly with the second argument (that “a book is necessary for the existence of fixed version,” 317), which he identifies as the basic hypothesis behind Epstein's magnum opus: Mavo (“Torah,” 308).

34. See Sussman's claim (“Torah,” 350–52) that what makes this phenomenon so special is not the exclusivity of orality per se (a phenomenon well known from several Eastern ancient cultures) but its existence in a culture so deeply invested in written books. What makes it unique, in other words, is the combination of literacy and orality, which creates this ideological, conscious, literate orality (unlike the popular orality of ancient Christianity; see Stroumsa, Guy G., “Early Christianity—A Religion of the Book?” in Homer, the Bible, and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World, ed. Stroumsa, Margalit Finkelberg and Gedaliahu A. G. [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2003], 162–63)Google Scholar.

35. “The only book in the world of the rabbis are the holy scriptures” (Sussman, “Torah,” 284).

36. See esp. Y. Pe'ah 2:6 (17a) and the sources cited by Epstein, Mavo, 694; Albeck, Mavo, 112–13; and Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, 140–47.

37. Already beginning, according to him, with the Pharisees (Sussman, “Torah,” 333 n. 6).

38. Sussman is not consistent regarding the question of whether an oral tradition can create a written-like fixed version (cf. “Torah,” 268–319). He also deals with rabbinic literature as basically one entity (345 n. 65; cf. his statement on 348) and does not consider seriously the possibility of different modes of transmission for different compositions (see, e.g., his all-too-fast rejection on 373–74 of Shlomo Naeh's suggestion that the tannaitic midrashim, unlike the Mishnah, were actually put in writing during the third century). He also becomes very vague and laconic when moving from describing the phenomenon to explaining it (353–55). In the foregoing summary, I have tried to refine what seems to me to be the main thesis of the article, but it includes numerous other discussions, regarding, among other things, wissenschaftgeschichte and analysis of specific Sugyot.

39. Hezser, Catherine, “The Mishnah and Ancient Book Production,” in The Mishnah in Contemporary Perspective, ed. Avery-Peck, Alan J. and Neusner, Jacob (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), 183Google Scholar. Hezser's paper is built around the assumption that it is sufficient to demonstrate that a given phenomenon did not exist in Roman literacy in order to reject its existence in rabbinic culture. Needless to say, the comparison does not work the other way around.

40. See Shinan, Avigdor, “Sifrut ha'aggada: bein higgud ‘al peh umassoret ketuvah,” Meḥkerei yerushalayim befolklor yehudi 1 (1981): 44–60Google Scholar.

41. Jaffee, Martin S., “Writing and Rabbinic Oral Tradition: On Mishnaic Narrative, Lists and Mnemonics,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 4, no. 1 (1994): 123–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42. Compare the claim of Y. Fraenkel that the existence of several versions of stories in rabbinic literature has nothing to do with the similar phenomenon known from folk literature, as can be proven from the fact that several versions appear in both halakhah and Aggadah (and no one claims that the rabbinic halakhah is folk literature in origin). Therefore, “It is evident that there is no cultural or historical connection between the oral culture of the rabbis…to the global social phenomenon of folk storytellers” (Fraenkel, , Sipur haagada: achdut shel tochen ve-zura [Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 2001], 237)Google Scholar.

43. The only study that tried to present a full list of such narratives is Breuer, Y., “Pa‘al uvenoni bet'iure tekes bamishnah,” Tarbiẓ 56 (1987): 299–326Google Scholar, but this list should be thoroughly revised. See Rosen-Zvi, Ishay, The Rite That Was Not: Temple, Midrash and Gender in Tractate Sotah (Jerusalem: Magness, 2008), 242–43 n. 1Google Scholar.

44. On this style, see Breuer, “Pa‘al” (note his observation that the succession of verbs can be either in past or present tense). Cf., however, the claim of Simon-Shoshan, Halakhah, that there is no clear-cut distinction between ritual narratives and other mishnaic styles and that, rather than use sharp classifications, we would be better off talking about different “levels” of narrativity (ma‘asim, examples, casuistic laws, etc.) in the Mishnah.

45. Walfish, “Shitat,”; and idem, “Megamot ra‘ayoniot bete'ur hamikdash va‘avodato bemasekhet Tamid uvemasekhet Middot,” Meḥkerei yehuda veshomron 7 (1997): 79–92.

46. Lorberbaum, Yair, Ẓelem 'elohim (Tel Aviv: Shocken, 2004)Google Scholar; Halberstam, Evidence; and Berkowitz, Execution.

47. Ben-Ezra, Daniel Stökel, The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003)Google Scholar.

48. Rosen-Zvi, Rite.

49. See A. Goldberg's description of the documentation activity of the sages in Yavneh: “The aim was to preserve in a definite literary form the great spiritual heritage of the Second Temple period…Since everything has to be saved and recorded for posterity, there was nothing in late Second Temple ritual and Pharisaic teaching which escaped the attention of the Sages and their disciples who assembled at Yavne [sic]” (Goldberg, “Mishnah” in Safrai, Literature, 215).

50. Hoffmann, David, Die Erste Mischna Und Die Controversen Der Tannaïm: Ein Beitrag Zur Einleitung in Die Mischna (Berlin: H. Itzjowski, 1882), 18–19Google Scholar; and Epstein, Mevo'ot, 36–37.

51. “Die vielen in unserer Mischna befindlichen längeren Beschreibungen von culturellen oder anderen religiösen Ceremonien unveränderte Theile der ersten Mischna sind” (Hoffman, Erste, 24–25). The only argument cited by Epstein is M. Yoma' 1:3, “and they read before him out of the rite of the day,” but “the rite of the day” (סדר היום) can easily be interpreted as referring to Leviticus 16.

52. Stökl, Impact, 19–28.

53. Most notably, the sages' control of the high priest and on the ritual (1:3–6). Cf. the description of the Torah benedictions (7:1), which seem to be influenced by the rabbinic synagogue liturgy; see also Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “Responsive Benedictions and the Creation of Liturgical System in rabbinic Literature,” Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal 7 (2008): 1–29.

54. See esp. the descriptions in Tractates Tamid, Shekalim Chapter 3, Pesaḥim Chapter 5, and Parah Chapter 3. In a few cases, one can find external evidence to verify the mishnaic description. Compare, for example, the mishnaic claim that the purification water was made by children (M. Parah 3:2) to the explicit prohibition of such a practice in Qumran (4Q271 2:13).

55. See I. Rosen-Zvi, “Haguf vehamikdash: reshimat mumei hakohanim bamishnah umekomo shel hamikdash beveit hamidrash hatanna'i,” Mada‘ei hayahadut 43 (2005–2006): 52–55.

56. See esp. the ritual narratives that are structured as a succession of derashot: M. Ma'aser Sheni 5:10–14 (the confession of tithes); Sotah 7:5 (blessings and curses); Sotah 9 (the rite of the ‘eglah ‘arufah); Yevamot 12:6 (ḥaliẓah); and Nega‘im 12:5–7 (nig‘ei batim).

57. See, for example, M. Nazir 6:6–9.

58. The clearest example is found in M. Middot. Compare Middot 1:2, 2:5, 5:4 (first person testimonies of the Sages), 4:4 (verse from 1 Kings, regarding Solomon's temple), 3:8 (Zachariah's description of the Second Temple), 2:5, 3:1, and 4:1–2 (quotes from Ezekiel, with explicit references to the future temple). Additional references are to Psalms (2:5) and Isaiah (4:7).

59. Or even a specific source, “Liber Ritualis,” as some scholars imagine. See Levine, D., Ta‘aniot haẓibbur uderashot haḥakhamim (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 2001), 67–68 n. 2.Google Scholar

60. Compare M. Sotah 9 (full narrative) to M. Sotah 8 (partially narrativistic) to M. Sanhedrin 8–9 (non-narrativistic homilies).

61. Moshe Simon-Shoshan, “Etiological Stories in the Mishnah” (unpublished paper).

62. Mishnah units 1:6 and 2:8–9.

63. Fraade, S., “Nomos and Narrative before Nomos and Narrative,” Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 17 (2005): 94Google Scholar.

64. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, 101.

65. Swartz, Michael D. and Yahalom, Joseph, eds., Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 16Google Scholar.

66. Berkowitz, Execution, 18. The concept of “perfect reality” is taken from J. Z. Smith's theory of ritual, see esp. idem, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). For a similar claim regarding Mishnah Sotah, see Rosen-Zvi, Rite, 226–41.

67. Lev. Rab. 7:3 (ed. Margolioth, p. 156), B. Ta‘anit 27b, and parallels.

68. Unlike the other two nonpractical orders, Zera‘im and Taharot, which were excluded from the Babylonian (but not the Palestinian) curriculum. See Yaakov Sussman, “Sugyot bavliot lisedarim zera'im vetaharot,” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1969), esp. 307.

69. The destruction does appear in several Mishnah units (see, e.g., M. Ma‘aser Sheni 5:2; Sukkah 3:12; Ro'sh Hashanah 1:3–4, 4:4; Mo‘ed Katan 3:6; Nazir 5:4; Sotah 9:12; and Bekhorot 4:1), but these are only exceptions to the general tendency to treat the Temple as present and part of the general binding halakhah. For a clear example of this tendency, see M. Pesaḥim 10:3; and Safrai, Shmuel and Safrai, Ze'ev, eds., Hagadat ḥazal (Jerusalem: Karta, 1998), 25Google Scholar.

70. This, of course, has to be accounted for in light of the inclusive curriculum of the tannaitic house of study, which includes both practical and theoretical issues. On the tannaitic curriculum see H. Shapira, “Beit hamidrash beshilhei bayit sheni uvitekufat hamishnah” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001).

71. Compare the distinction made by Josephus between Temple laws (appearing in the third book of Antiquities, in a descriptive manner) and universal, “secular” laws (appearing in the forth book in a prescriptive style). See also David Altshuler, “On the Classification of Judaic Laws in the Antiquities of Josephus and the Temple Scroll of Qumran,” AJS Review 7–8 (1982–83): 1–14. Similarly, we find a clear separation in Qumran between works dealing with practical laws (such as Rule of the Community) and eschatological compositions dealing with the future temple (e.g., the Temple Scroll and War Scroll). A full integration of Temple laws into the everyday code, in a manner similar to the Mishnah, is found in none of these cases.

72. Neusner, Jacob, Ancient Israel after Catastrophe: The Religious World View of the Mishnah (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

73. See Cohen, Shaye J. D., “Jacob Neusner, Mishnah and Counter-Rabbinics,” Conservative Judaism 37 (1983): 48–63Google Scholar; and Schwartz, Seth, Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 8–9.Google Scholar

74. See Berkowitz, Execution; and Halberstam, Evidence.

75. On Demai, see Oppenheimer, Aharon, The Am Ha-aretz: A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic-Roman Period (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977)Google Scholar; and Aderet, Avraham, Miḥurban litekumah: derekh Yavneh beshikum ha'umah, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1998), 378–85Google Scholar. On ‘Avodah Zarah, see Urbach, Ephraim E., “Hilkhot ‘avodah zarah vehameẓiut hahistorit be'ereẓ yisrael bame'ah hasheniyah vehame'ah hashelishit,” ‘Ereẓ Yisra'el 5 (1959): 189–245Google Scholar; and Halbertal, Moshe, “Coexisting with the Enemy: Jews and Pagans in the Mishnah,” in Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Stanton, Graham N. and Stroumsa, Guy G. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 159–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.